Leadership & Strategy

Making of a Bi-Directional, Prioritized Roadmap

A product roadmap was created for an application and platform product line that was overly detailed and caused long meetings. To improve the process, the product leaders created a list of priorities that were discussed and weighted against strategic initiatives. The top 3-4 priorities were chosen and presented to the rest of the team. The roadmap was then circulated to stakeholders and executives and was committed to. The lessons learned from this process were that the roadmap should have high-level themes, it should be both bottom-up and top-down, and all stakeholders should be included and executive buy-in should be secured before committing.

Driving Clarity of Charter in a Large Organization

The Director of Engineering at a company was tasked with reorganizing a new area composed of four disparate teams, as well as dotted-line dependencies. The process included political machinations, deep-diving into technology, and building relationships with product management. After creating an inventory and analysis of the code areas, the Director had to get buy-in from their management chain and socialize the proposal. This process took seven weeks and included lessons such as patience, being cautious when committing, and communicating risks to executives.

The Activity of Analysis

This article discusses the tools and techniques used by a cross-functional engineering manager to combat uncertain situations. These include being proactive instead of reactive, risk analysis, SWOT analysis, and the five whys. The key concept is strategic thinking, and the activity of doing these analyses is more important than the artifacts.

Unless You Prioritize Product Features, Your Product Will Remain Dormant

This article discusses a project that was stuck between a beta and a pilot version. To make the product Generally Available (GA), the team had to prioritize features and break down the project into manageable parts. With a four-month timeline, they were able to reduce the 16-month-long GA timeline to only four months while preserving the most valuable features to customers. The author also learned two main challenges while negotiating with the PM and talking to team members; the only way to move forward was to make compromises. The author applied the most effective tactic of asking "Tell me more" instead of "What do you mean" to his team members.

Collaborating to Inspire Change Between Teams

The company I work at focuses on building enterprise products, and the product organization is more outward-facing. However, product interaction with the engineering department was limited due to a focus on business. To promote successful collaboration, I escalated the problem to my leadership team and proposed hiring an agile coach. With the help of a product stakeholder, we began an experiment and hired junior product managers to mentor seniors. It was essential to work with empathy and persevere to ensure successful collaboration.

Finding the Right Moment of Opportunity to Advance Yourself

After working as an individual contributor for many years, the author decided to pursue a career in management. They took the initiative to manage a junior team in their office for a three month period, and received positive feedback. Through this experience, they learned the importance of taking ownership of their career, being a solution provider, staying informed, and having conversations with their managers.